Albedo

Seems I should check the stats to see what the payload is with a downgrade. Also, knowing you are ex army GrumpyDave, I would appreciate elaboration on why these trucks are hard work as you probably drove them a fair bit, and any other recomendations on your preference of truck and if its not too much to ask any info on whats involved in getting the HGV Cat C....... In your own time mate:001_smile:

That explains that bit quite nicely David and Sihart..... so if I limit the weight I'm licenced to carry, I'm away without an HGV. I do have to go out for a bit now so please don't think me rude if I don't reply for a couple of hours. Tommorrow I will look into more detail on the speck of the vehicle and also pursue that lead a bit. Much appreciated also interested in more info on the ag reg route as the name of the game will be tonnage, even though its going abroad, be nice to have it UK legal to start with.

This rings a bell too and could be the way forward. Is 7.5 tonne the limit on a normal licence? I know nothing about what you are allowed to do or not. Do you have any idea how you do this, chop 500kgs off the back for example:001_smile: It has an atlas crane on it, but would like to keep that bit:001_smile:

I am hearing that there may be ways to up the tonnage of the truck you can drive on a normal licence, determined by the way you register the vehicle in the first place. Does this ring any bells. I want to drive a big Bedford TM 8 ton truck on a normal pre 79 (or whatever the magic date is) licence the way I used to drive Cargos. It would be unplated to start with, I know how to get it plated but not how to be able to use it without an HGV licence. Any light on the possibilities of this appreciated.

Happy to answer that one. Its red..... Haveing drunk enough Chilean Carmenere to sink a battleship in recent years , I've gone for a French Shiraz/Grenache blend for tonight. It might wash down the dictionary I seem to have swallowed:thumbup1:

Herein followeth my VERY long tuppence worth. This is what I do…. 1) Work the tree clockwise (Imagine looking down on it to see what I mean). This presents right handed people to the branch with holding hand on the left and cutting hand on the right, closest to the trunk. This is one handed use but arms don’t cross. Left handers, I presume go the other way. 2) If I find myself presented to a branch the wrong way, then I sometimes use a sling to hold the branch to another branch, or to its own stub, to avoid crossing arms and to hold onto it while I cut. The sling with its crab is the only thing above normal standard kit that is always with me. I also use the sling for branches that are a bit heavy to hand hold. This also allows two hands on the saw. 3) I do use a conventional step cut and break off, if I’m not over a greenhouse and can’t be bothered to get the sling out. I prefer not to do this on less vertical branches over targets and will usually use the sling. It gets quite quick once you get used to it. 4) When cutting one handed I have the branch close in on the dogs and also check my grip, my footing, my work position, my prussic … certain I ain’t gonna slip, before cutting. Thinking about where the saw will end up and at what revs and if there is a chance that I would not have control. I want break on or saw off at the end of the cut before I worry about the held branch. All of these checks and more are done all the time and for every cut and are done almost without thinking, but at the same time not without thinking, because I’m up a tree so I’m concentrating JJG (arbtalk member) who had the nasty cut posted on here from crossed arm cutting, either thanked me for this tip, about the sling, or agreed with it a couple of years ago. I guess he couldn’t be bothered to get the sling out that time. I’m sure he would agree that he now wishes that he had. I did all this before arbtalk was available and to the current time, since joining arbtalk the point that one handed cutters could bring about the banning of the top handled climbing saw, has been raised. Something that has nearly happened before. Some people may wish to consider not one handing for the good of the industry. I also suffer tennis elbow, which is another thing that I hadn’t considered so much as a consequence of one handed use pre arbtalk. The H&S thing is strange. Over the years the goalposts move. A bit like smoking cigarettes. You develop the habit when you’re young then over decades public opinion changes. Smoking was recommended by doctors when I was born. I’m over 50 so I have an excuse perhaps for my personal smoking and chainsaw habits. Would I recommend smoking, no I would not but I smoke. Would I recommend one handed saw use to a newbie, no I wouldn’t but I do it. The above methods are intended as ….IF YOU MUST THEN HERE’S A BIT SAFER WAY, BUT PERHAPS FOR THE FUTURE IT SHOULD BE DISCOURAGED. Disclaimer. I’m working on a disclaimer that will be my signature, but I don’t answer nitpickers, people who misquote me, or people who accuse me of having an agenda. People who get what I’m saying but exercise their right to disagree… fire away but I still probably won’t answer. I'm going to have an early glass of wine after that and as it's sunday:001_smile:

I am in contact with Martin in Portugal over longer term Portugese possibilities. The member concerned posted on here that he was going to Portugal and I wondered why a lad, just set up in a business by his father, was whizzing off to do this. The member said on this forum that his background was in his dads landscaping business. All information posted on here by said member. I hoped he would do some grounding, get the phoenix palm experience, and come out of it with usefull experience the way I did when I was young. This looks bad for you young man, I hope you can give Martin a call and face the music, or put your side of it or whatever but please do call him even if you have to eat some humble pie. You may have your reasons but it will help us all if peace of some kind can be made.

I agree with you and will not carry out work that I don't agree with from the trees point of view. I find that it wins me recomendations and work. There are 2 schools of thought on this and those that believe they should do it or someone else will are entitled to their view. As a new person to the industry you should know that there are people out here that agree with you, and I have about 17 yrs under my belt. I know three companies in my area that also agree with me and with you, but they don't post on arbtalk. Two of those companies are even stricter than me on sticking to what they consider to be good practice. All 3 have 20+ yrs of experience and are ReaseHeath trained.

As much as you can get to know someone on a forum, as I've got to know you Tom from your posts I've come to quite like you. I hope next year is better for you mate, stick at it and you'll get where you are going. I'm a bit older than you as you know and I have a tough year ahead, hopefully leaving England again to follow my dreams. Good luck to you and good luck to me, I'm gonna need it:thumbup1:

I notice the Husky has decent old school combi spanner fuel n oil caps. I would consider using it just for that.... no more oil down the leg or stuck fuel caps from the plasticky Stihl contraptions.... Your thoughts please skyhuck:001_smile:

I did a bit of googling to see if I could find an economic model for my earlier idea. No luck yet but I found this on Wikipedia and thought I would share it:001_smile: Greater fool theory: "Popular among laymen but not fully confirmed by empirical research, greater fool theory portrays bubbles as driven by the behaviour of a perennially optimistic market. Participants (the fools) who buy overvalued assets in anticipation of selling it to other speculators (the greater fools) at a much higher price. According to this unsupported explanation, the bubbles continue as long as the fools can find greater fools to pay up for the overvalued asset. The bubbles will end only when the greater fool becomes the greatest fool who pays the top price for the overvalued asset and can no longer find another buyer to pay for it at a higher price." Disclaimer: I am in no way infering that any other poster in this thread is a 'fool' I just found it amusing. Perhaps its the wine,

Putting all of these calculations, conveniently, to one side for a moment and pondering the original question, I’ve had a thought. Could it be that the people doing the extraction to roadside have been doing some maths of their own. If they see the firewood vendors selling at £120 a loose cube when they are selling at £40 a tonne at roadside. I forget the maths but a £40 tonne makes more than one loose cube by quite a bit. If I were on the extraction side I would want a bigger slice of this pie. I realise you add your transport and processing costs to the roadside price but could it be that by driving up the price as a firewood vendor you are cutting your own throats by inadvertently driving up the price of supply. I still believe that Big J's calculation is important once the maths can be agreed as this will help to establish a ceiling of how high the price can go.

Why not just put your figures in, in a helpful way. edit: B101uk I would add that I've done this maths before on arbtalk, and have it somewhere on my external hard drive, gonna look now. All of this however is in the context of this thread and Big J's figures were the first offered.

There's a few points to address here and its touchy ground, so I would like to point out that I genuinely believe that all woodcutters are hard working and honest individuals although subject to normal human foibles such as greed, avarice etc. The points are to do with: (these are not all of them) - What price will the market bear, i.e. just get as much money as you can for as little wood as you can get away with... fair enough. - Yes the customer doesn't care about calorific value etc but somebody has to work out what is a fair deal for them. Can be a useful marketing tool too. - You need to know how much wood to throw on your truck or you might give them too much, and judging by other threads some people are giving them too much. I stress that I am not suggesting dishonesty, and do not believe that hard working wood cutters have it in them:001_smile: I don't believe that these threads are about 'over regulation' but about working out what is fair and reasonable for all. By the way 18 stoner, your'e right about the ethical angle but a cynic would say, buy coastal land in Greenland:001_smile: I'm a cynic:001_smile:

The tricky thing about the calculation that Big J did is that all the different fuel types come in different weights and measures and you have to get them all into the same units in order to do a calculation. Also, there are variables such as price, water content (where relevant) etc. However once you come up with some numbers which I think in this case was Kw/kg they can be converted into other units which different people may prefer using conversion tables. I had these before I did a system restore on the laptop so put them on an external hard drive. Might have a look for them at some point:001_smile:.

If you burn any fuel in an inneficient way, or lose heat because you left the window open for that matter, it doesn't affect the validity of Big J's calculation, so its irrelevant. So is how many stoves you have or how much you like chopping wood. The Kwh calculation remains valid.

Genius, brilliant post Big j, i have been considering embarking on this type of calculation for a few days now but I was afraid to even begin to try to work out how to go about it. This type of thing is the way to work this thing out for once and for all as much as that is possible in the firewood business.

Hi Jayvee I'm afraid I'm not suggesting that we stack the wood for the customer, they can do that themselves. I'm just saying that I'll tip in their driveway and if they choose to stack it and if they want it to end up as a cube when stacked I can make it so the pile on their driveway will do so if they wish. Firewood man (if I understand correctly) makes the point that he wants £90 (representative figure) for a loose cube, so if they want an amount tipped that will end up as a stacked cube it will cost more for the extra wood involved. He's not offering to stack it for that price (£140) he wants paying for the wood. I have no objection to what firewood man is saying because it makes the client aware in both cases of how much wood he is getting. He finds it easier to sell a loose cube for £90 making the client aware that this is 0.63 of a stacked cube - hence he has a working system which ain't broke and doesn't require my oar in the equation to fix it. I agree with this:001_smile: Is anybody here confused yet:001_smile:

I don’t see how my proposal makes the job harder. The neat stacking of the cube only had to be done once in order to establish what it looks like when thrown into your transportation device loose. You don’t even have to do this if you accept the figures given by Jayvee or available elsewhere. Alternatively, just once, you can loose fill your transportation vessel, with your Bobcat or whatever and then spend a couple of hours stacking that amount to see what the real volume is. I repeat, just once, as a way of establishing stacked volume. Once you have established the stacked volume of your loose volume, you can tell the customer that you will deliver X volume loose, which will give them Y volume stacked. My point is about giving the customer as far as possible a known volume of actual firewood. My original post was inspired by this post by Chrissishrimp: Just delivered my first load of firewood by Chrissishrimp I just delivered my first load of fire wood which was dead elm, split in a 1m3 bag. However it seemed to be not as much wood as i thought it was going to be, i calculated that there was only about 320 logs or so and to not lose my first customer and wanting to build up a good reputation around the area i am going to take some more to him to tomorrow. Luckily i delivered it to the pub i work at At least i know now that for each bag i deliver i will also take two full wheel barrows or so too. I was wondering for those who use 1m3 bags how neatly do you put the logs in them and how many logs roughly are in them?? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I realise you could do with proper feedback Steve..... I had the same intermitent slow thing as others and in the last 20 mins I've been back on its been working normally. Will let you know if that changes.

I found tonights threads, not very interesting, could this be the problem.

Just a thankyou for taking time to do such a considered response peckerwoo. So on the Gulf stream - It would be bad if it happened but in your view unlikely. That answers my question, Thanks mate:001_smile:

Sometimes its a case of - takeitorleaveit - likeitorlumpit

Interestingly my £80 a stacked cube works out at £120 a loose 2.5m load which agrees with what Max J has posted so we may be arriving at a fair price for you. It would depend a bit on the % softwood and the seasonedness of said softwood element.

According to these figures posted by Jay vee, which are a Finish standard: 1 SOLID m3 = 1.54 STACKED m3 = 2.5 LOOSE m3 1 STACKED m3 = 0.65 SOLID m3 = 1.63 LOOSE m3 1 LOOSE m3 = 0.62 STACKED m3 = 0.4 SOLID m3 You have 1.54 stacked cubic metre load there if your logs were thrown in loose to get your 2.5 cubic metre load. This works out at £65 ish per stacked cubic metre if you sell your loose load for £100. I was getting about this price last year for seasoned hardwood so I would say that for a mixed load of seasoned wood your price is fair. This year the prices have gone up a bit so you may even get a bit more. In some parts of the country the price is double this amount. I would say you could get around £80 a stacked cube this year but where you price it comes down to you really and your overheads and what the local market will bear, as in how loaded and desperate for wood people are. Hope this helps.